Top of the Pops 9 June 1988

 

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Peter Powell: “Hello! Welcome to tonight's edition of Top of the Pops! On the show tonight! We've got Voice of the Beehive! Mica Paris! And also Morrisey!” 

Simon Mayo: “And we're going to start at number four. Look out for the new sport of synchronised drumming. Because these are the Time Lords and Doctorin' the Tardis. This is just brilliant. Watch this.”

 [4] THE TIMELORDS: doctorin' the tardis. Simon Mayo speaks the truth. This is a brilliant performance. Perfect start of the show stuff. It's also a great return to the studio after all the asbestos disruption of the previous week. It seems odd that Peter Powell doesn't mention it, considering he was one of the hosts in the makeshift studio. Maybe everyone at the BBC was bored of the subject.

 

 

 Vision Mixer Hilary West gives the old Quantel box a workout. Take a look at the lovely moment when the Doctor Who sting kicks in and the picture twists into a feedback tunnel reminiscent of the title sequence. The only shame is that the effect abruptly cuts at the end, rather than fading away which jars visually. Maybe it wasn't possible to fade out of the effect and a cut was the only alternative. Another Quantel oddity occurs when the picture twists and divides into four. One of the quadrants leaves an electronic trail behind it -like a snail track- as it slides off screen. This happens again when the effect is reused so it's obviously a technical limitation of the time.

The Timelords are accompanied on stage by two Daleks. Despite being apparently made of tea chests they still look better than the Renault Clio variants introduced in 2010. Blam! Take that Steven Moffat! “What a laugh!” says Peter Powell at the end, in the most humourless tone imaginable.

[18] FIVE STAR: another weekend. On video with “their new raunchy image!” according to Peter Powell.

[23] VOICE OF THE BEEHIVE: don't call me baby. “Well it had to happen. At long last they've got a big hit.” Coming off the end of Five Star it's momentarily unclear who Simon Mayo is talking about, he means Voice of the Beehive.

Had they struggled to break the charts? A little. The Official UK Top 40 records their single, I Say Nothing, getting to [45] in the charts week ending 14/11/1987. Next, I Walk The Earth, did a little better in the charts for week ending 12/03/1988. It got to [42].

It must have been a relief when the third single finally hit the sweet spot and broke into the Top 40, and eventually the Top 20. “Good song!” is Peter Powell's capsule review. He's not wrong. I always liked the backhanded compliment in the line “I think she's pretty/And I think that you have done quite well.”

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31.

[7] MICA PARIS: my one temptation. Mica Paris is wearing a Stars and Stripes leather jacket; the left half is the red and white stripes, the right side is blue with the stars as metal badges. “I want that jacket,” is Simon Mayo's comment. This is as good a time to talk about what the hosts are wearing. Simon Mayo has come in a brightly-coloured Timmy Mallett style Hawaiian shirt. Peter Powell is dressed more formally in a pin-striped shirt and tie. The shirt is strobing badly on screen and I'm surprised it wasn't rejected for technical reasons.

TOP 40 BREAKERS. [28 FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM moonchild] Peter Powell could really do with a second go at the word Nephilim, he renders it as “Ne-Filim!”; [24 SABRINA boys boys boys] meanwhile, Simon Mayo is distracted by Sabrina's artfully cropped video, describing her as “totally clothed.”; [31 JAMES BROWN i'm real]

[15] MAXI PRIEST wild world. That's Wild World, and not Wide World, as I always assumed.

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11. Simon Mayo also has trouble with Nephilim, stressing all the syllables in a way that makes the band sound like an Egyptian pharaoh “Neh-Fil-Em.”

[12] MORRISSEY: everyday is like sunday. This is the Platonic ideal of a Morrissey performance; with his towering quiff, languid hip thrusts, and a hand resting behind the head, or in the small of the back like Leonard Rossiter. It's a lovely mournful song. For unexplained reasons Rod Litherland, Lighting, has decided it needs to be enhanced with small strobes which flare with such intensity they burn spots into the camera.

TOP 10.

[1] WET WET WET: with a little help from my friends. A third repeat of the Wet Wet Wet performance from 12/05/1988.

[19] ERASURE: chains of love. Mike Read and Gary Davies next week. Paul Ciani returns to claiming the Produced and Directed credit this week, as opposed to last week's Asbestos Special for which he was credited only for Production. It's possible he went with the Production credit last week, which is a bit more old school Light-Entertainment, because there wasn't much work is assembling videos and clips and linking them together.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: The Timelords, Doctorin' the Tardis